


Contraband

by yikesola



Series: Renee's Very Own Bingo Card [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Established Relationship, F/F, Hospital Visit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27083134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Dani is ridiculously pale, and Phoebe knows that’s the pot calling the kettle pale. But she’s too worried to laugh about her own dumb joke, because Dani is also shivering and has been feeling poorly almost as long as she’s been in Manchester. She’s wrapped up in a burrito of Phoebe’s brightly coloured duvet and her face frowns out at Phoebe.A fic about sickness and hand holding.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Renee's Very Own Bingo Card [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976617
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	Contraband

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of [cal](http://calvinahobbes.tumblr.com) and [keelin](http://ahappydnp.tumblr.com) graciously providing me with my very own bingo card! <3  
> 💚Bingo Squares: wlw, Hospital

Dani is ridiculously pale, and Phoebe knows that’s the pot calling the kettle pale. But she’s too worried to laugh about her own dumb joke, because Dani is also shivering and has been feeling poorly almost as long as she’s been in Manchester. She’s wrapped up in a burrito of Phoebe’s brightly coloured duvet and her face frowns out at Phoebe. 

“We should go to A&E,” Phoebe says for the third time that day. 

“I’m not going to A&E,” Dani says like she had the other times. 

“You’re sick,” Phoebe pouts. Dani doesn’t even see her pout. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused. 

“I’m fine,” she says. There’s enough fight in her words to scare Phoebe from pushing further. 

But the other fear— the fear that something really is terribly wrong with her girlfriend, the fear that she could lose her, the fear that doing nothing is the worst thing they could do— bubbles up and she steps grabs her phone off the coffee table and skitters into her room. 

The call rings forever. She didn’t know phones could ring so long. 

Eventually, her mum picks up. “Hello, child,” she says, sounding impossibly cheerful. 

“Mum,” Phoebe gets out before her voice cracks. 

“Oh, Phoebe,” she says, voice immediately in caring-mother mode and Phoebe is so close to crying just from that. “What’s the matter?” 

“It’s Dani,” Phoebe sniffles. “She still feels poorly. And I don’t know what to do.” 

“Still?” A similar worried call had been made to Kath a week ago. Back when Dani was still complaining only of _tummy rumbling_ and feeling a little sluggish. Back when Dani had gone to the doctor and been given some four-syllable pills for it and told she’d be just fine. “I thought she’d been to the doctor?” 

“She did,” Phoebe tells her, “but she’s just getting worse. And she won’t let me take her to A&E.” 

“Why not?” 

“She says she’s fine.” Phoebe doesn’t get it. Phoebe’s had her own share of A&E trips and she was always eager to get somewhere that experts could patch her up. She doesn’t get why Dani would rather sit on the couch in pain. 

“I’d keep a close eye on her, dear,” her mum sighs. “Give her water and something easy on the stomach and have her try to get some sleep. And if tomorrow is more of the same, try to get her to go in. If she still doesn’t want to, you just hand the phone to her with me on the line and I’ll convince her. Worse yet, I’ll come into town myself if you really need it.” 

Phoebe’s worry is soothed slightly at the image. She feels a shaky smile form on her face. “Thanks, mum,” she says. 

“It’ll be okay, Feebs.” 

“Mm-hmm…” She really, _really_ wants to believe her. 

-

Phoebe is saying something. Dani can hear her, and she can kinda see Phoebe walking around the flat in front of her. But she’s just getting bits and pieces at this point. 

She’s felt like shit all week and increasingly shittier today as the hours keep ticking. 

She feels like she’s a still statue sat on Phoebe’s sofa while everything happens around her— Phoebe orders takeout and gets water and the sun and shadows move. But Dani is rooted. 

Eventually, she feels a hand on her shoulder and realizes that at some point she had laid down on the couch and fallen asleep. She doesn’t remember that happening. She doesn’t remember getting dressed from a big t-shirt and period-stained pants into jeans and Phoebe’s bright green York hoodie. 

Somewhere through the haze in Dani’s head, she hears Phoebe urging, “C’mon,” in the soft voice she might use for a child or a little dog. 

She thinks Phoebe is trying to get her to move to the bed to sleep. But that’s too much fucking hassle; she’s gonna feel like shit here on the couch or like shit there in the bed, and this at least avoids having to stand. 

But Phoebe keeps urging even after Dani swats her hand away. 

When she does stand, Dani is surprised to find she’s wearing shoes. She doesn’t remember putting on shoes. 

Then she sees the laces, tied messily and like they’re about to come undone. 

“Why’d you put m’ shoes on?” Dani mumbles. 

“I told you yesterday,” Phoebe says, her face very close and her words _almost_ clear. “I’m dragging your ass to A&E.” 

Dani is distracted enough by that _yesterday_ that she lets Phoebe lead her through the door, down the lift, and into a waiting cab. 

-

Phoebe can’t help but think the experience of sitting in the waiting room at Manchester city centre is so vastly different from the waiting room in Rossendale. Back in the valley, she had her mum to fuss over her in the way that always made whatever silly injury she was there for seem a little less scary. There were also always old people there which made Phoebe a little sad wondering what had happened to bring them in, but also feel a little better because old people just seemed to like her. Old people always thought she was well-behaved because she was too awkward to be anything else. Kids her own age just thought she was weird. 

Even waiting at A&E in York after she broke her hand during a freaking piggyback race had felt a little bit like home. 

But waiting in Manchester is like being dropped amongst the cast of Shameless while she and Dani sit there with matching haircuts and matching skinny jeans, looking like Myspace girls with a little too pointed of an interest in Hayley Williams. 

Which, sure, they are. But it’s just another thing for her to worry about while she’s ignoring every muscle in her body that wants to reach over and grab Dani’s hand. She wants to give it a little _it’ll be okay_ kind of squeeze. 

She wants to be the one doing the reassuring, but instead Dani looks over at her and smirks and whispers, “This is a great date and all, but just ordering pizza would be fine next time.”

Before Phoebe can tease back, a nurse calls from the double doors, “Howell,” and Dani begins the arduous task of standing. 

-

The doctor tells Dani in a voice that comes through the fog that she’ll be having surgery in the morning. She thinks her own face must be neutral at the information because she simply doesn’t have the energy to do anything else, but Phoebe’s eyebrows furrow. 

She points a finger at Phoebe when they ask for an emergency contact and hears Phoebe begin to explain that all her family is down south and she only just moved here for uni. Phoebe lies and tells the doctor they’re roommates. 

It’s a lie in two ways. 

They don’t live together, Dani technically lives in the halls. And also they’re so much more than bloody roommates. But no one asks any questions because that’s probably a familiar story, uni students coming in to get their fucking stomachs pumped and having no one but the housemates they’ve known for a week to care enough to even drag them here. 

Then Phoebe has to go home because once Dani is given a bed and a hideous hospital gown and an IV of something, visiting hours are over and the nurse with a tired smile assures Phoebe there’s nothing else to be done tonight. 

“Sleep well, okay,” Phoebe says before heading out. 

Dani huffs out a laugh. The man she’s sharing a room with is muttering, “Ow, ow, ow,” every other second and doesn’t seem likely to let up, and her everything aches, including her head so she doesn’t think she could even stand looking at her phone screen to text Phoebe. She’s suddenly more empathetic for Phoebe's migraine days than she’s ever been. But she nods anyways and the corner of Phoebe’s mouth quirks in a smile from Dani’s laugh and maybe things really will be okay if she can only get through this night. 

Her phone buzzes several times and Dani turns the brightness all the way down and holds it at arm's length each time and feels some tears which she’s stubbornly refusing to cry with each message. They come a few hours apart. Phoebe clearly isn’t getting any sleep either. 

_I love you_  
_Mum says you’re getting a whole pot of special soup. I had to promise I wouldn’t hoard it all for myself, don’t worry_  
_Your scar is going to be very sexy :p_  
_I’m ordering the good biscuits for all those pills you’re gonna have to take._  
_I hate that the nurse was there so I couldn’t wolf whistle at your hospital gown butt_  
_*wolf whistle*_  
_I love you <3 _

-

Phoebe has been told when Dani is expected to be out of surgery and able to have visitors. She has also been told that Dani will be able to eat again if she’s up to it when awake. And she has been told that Dani might be a little out of it due to the morphine. 

All of which means that when Phoebe hurries into Dani’s hospital room after what has felt like an impossibly long night, and sees her girlfriend curled on her side and snoozing, still hooked up to all the medical wires Phoebe doesn’t understand and with messy hair sprawled over her pillow and face, it’s all Phoebe can do to keep from falling over. Dani just looks so tuckered and fragile, but there’s overwhelming relief in the fact that she is here. She is here and sleeping and she is going to be alright. 

Phoebe digs her phone out of her pocket and snaps a few candids, then pulls a chair close to Dani’s bed. She reaches for Dani’s hand, and it’s warm, the way Dani always is. 

Dani wakes up a while later. Phoebe hasn’t kept track of how long. She sees Dani’s eyes flutter open and hears her groan a little as she tries to move onto her back and Phoebe doesn’t want to fuck something up by trying to help, so she just presses the button beside the bed to call for the nurse. 

“Yes?” the smiling woman asks a moment later. “Oh, we’re waking up are we?” 

Dani is still kinda twisted, partly on her back and partly on her side. The nurse helps her turn completely, and lifts the bed so Dani is laying like a lounge chair. She tweaks the morphine levels because Dani mumbles she can’t feel it, then steps out. 

It’s only after the nurse leaves that Dani seems to notice Phoebe is there. Dani’s eyes land on her and she breaks out into a great grin.

“Hey, you,” Phoebe says, reaching for her hand again. Dani squeezes back tightly. 

“Hey,” she says. Her voice sounds cracked and unused. 

“How you feeling?”

“I don’t think there’s actual drugs in there,” Dani says, pointing to the bag attached to her IV. “Feel like shit.” Then she laughs. “But better than before. Better shit.” 

“Good,” Phoebe nods. She hopes the pain meds will kick in soon. She reaches for her purse. “You hungry?” 

“Isn’t hospital food supposed to be awful?” Dani asks. She laughs again. Responses seem to be coming in distinct chunks right now. “Guess I have no room to talk. I set pasta on fire last week.” 

Phoebe rememberers that frantic phone call— _How was I supposed to know you put water in the pot?!_

She grabs a paper bag out of her purse and stops trying to hide a smile. “My girl’s not gonna suffer hospital food,” she says, handing Dani a few McDonald’s fries.

“Fucking bless you,” Dani sighs, munching the almost-cold potatoes. 

Phoebe unwraps a cheeseburger and rips it in half, unsure how much Dani _should_ eat even if she _can_ eat. 

Dani’s eyes go wide at the sight of it and she says almost too sincerely, “Marry me?” 

Phoebe laughs and hands the burger over. “I think that morphine’s kicked in.” 

She watches Dani chewing happily, holding one hand and simultaneously eager to get her home but so fucking happy she’s here right now with people who actually know what they’re doing to keep her Dani alive. 

There are bigger health crises than appendicitis, but Phoebe feels shaken up enough. She doesn’t fully realise that everything really is going to be okay until Dani rolls back over her side, having eaten all she can for now, and smiles a dopey but still recognizably Dani smile, and says, “Oh yeah, meds definitely kicked in.” Or some slurred approximation, Phoebe can only assume.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/632331012520706048/calvinahobbes-and-ahappydnp-harnessed-my-whining) !


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